


when you love someone

by twilightrenjun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boyfriends, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Renle, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightrenjun/pseuds/twilightrenjun
Summary: 'Cause when you love someone,You open up your heart.When you love someone,You make room.This specific song kept playing around the corridor halls of theNeo Campusand his boyfriend was nowhere to be found. What’s the correlation? Well, it was a song his boyfriend kept singing to him. Every part of that song, he memorized by heart.Okay. See, here’s the thing. It’s Valentine's Day but Renjun hasn’t gotten any single greeting from his boyfriend. It’s normal to act a bit worried, right?
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Zhong Chen Le, Huang Ren Jun/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	when you love someone

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for my friend [jusbabybabiji] in betaing this fic, xoxo!
> 
> this was inspired by 3/2/21 chenra (with renjun as the guest) that happened + a little wonder's 5th challenge!

It’s February, of course, he’ll have tons and tons of love letters and chocolate all from different people and classmates. Renjun shook his head in disappointment, all but none from his significant other. He slammed his locker shut, letting his right arm fall down right to his pockets. 

It’s Valentine’s Day, he should’ve received any greeting from **him** right now, at least a text. What he received was the usual: a good morning, exchanging _I love yous,_ but neither of them acknowledged why today was special.

Maybe it was partially Renjun’s fault for not greeting first.

 _Calm down, Renjun. It’s impossible for him to forget such memorable day. The day just started. He’ll text you by lunchtime._ Renjun didn’t care about the girls who were currently surrounding him, _fawning_ over him. They gave him all sorts of cards and chocolates, one to which he humbly accepted, of course. It would be too rude to refuse, but those gifts don't mean anything important to him unless they came from **him**. 

The number of gifts increased, so it left Renjun himself to find his own solution where to place the said gifts instead of throwing them away.

Renjun’s mind flew back to the thoughts he had earlier after being distracted by the surplus amount of gifts he received just for this morning. None of it came from **him**. The thought of this brought a frown to his lips, walking along the corridors, on his way to his first class.

💌

Lunchtime.

It was lunchtime and there wasn’t anything yet sent to Renjun, not even something like asking him whether he had eaten or how everything was going on for him. It’s _not_ the usual anymore. He wasn’t sure if this was meant to test his patience because if it was, then his boyfriend was surely succeeding.

Seconds turn into minutes of waiting for his boyfriend, yet he was nowhere to be found. With every growing second, his worry increases. He didn’t know whatever was going on with them, it was the first time this ever happened.

“Has anyone seen Chenle today?” Renjun heard from the other table, quite literally after he ordered lunch.

Renjun was a great pretender when it came to these, he was known for quite the opposite of something like Donghyuck, tagged as the _sunflower_ of their batch. “No, but someone said they did. It’s so new he wasn’t around, plus didn’t we have some small event scheduled for today?” 

Renjun kept listening while silently taking a bite of his lunch. It was his _boyfriend_ they were talking about, _how could he not?_ “Oh, but I heard Jeno and Mark would handle the event today! Didn’t he mention he had something important to do that would clash with the schedule today?” The other student hushed the person speaking after acknowledging Renjun’s presence. He’s been here for minutes and only by this time they were able to notice him.

“Renjun!” The other student gasped, tugging the sleeves of the person who was beside them. It could be signifying either: (a) get away from him, (b) they were his admirers. 

Not that Renjun was so confident about the latter though, but it has always been that way, especially since it’s February, plus his reputation didn’t reflect a cheerful and friendly student either. Who would one bother to consider when all he wore was leather jackets and black outfits? No one, as he rightfully guessed, but people still swarmed his way whenever he came to school.

All he wanted was for people to treat him as equals, not as someone higher because that’s what he always felt.

The other girl from the same table slammed the table and stood up. “Huang Renjun!”

Wow, Renjun admired her confidence to stand up like that in front of the people around her. The time was critical for lunch, and many people were lined up at the counter. What she did attracted bystanders who were only there to buy lunch.

“This is my Valentine's gift for you that I hope you’ll humbly accept,” Renjun was flustered for a while, he wasn’t so used to these openly made confessions in front of the public. He didn’t want to embarrass the girl who did muster up some courage, so he politely stood up, reaching for the box of chocolate and tiny card that came from it.

“Thanks.” Renjun uttered, coming out a bit colder than what he expected. After he spoke, the crowd dispersed back to the things they were doing earlier; whatever it was. That group of students too, they moved out after Renjun accepted the gift.

Renjun froze over the fact that the tiny card had a small fox sticker, the exact type of sticker he gave Chenle. It was something he bought off the store close to his dormitory, giving it away to Chenle as a gift. The card inside said _I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, baby, how are you? I wasn’t able to drop messages because of the Valentine's event :( I’m going to catch up with you later! I promise I’ll be free by 12, so please don’t be mad anymore~_

The girl who gave this to him was most likely part of the student council as well.

As much as it was cringe to others, it made Renjun feel better because after all, Chenle managed to give himself time to write for him, at least a very short letter of how they were doing. Moreover, those last words from him meant _date,_ right?

💌

“Me? Are you sure I was called for, specifically?” Renjun was pretty sure he didn’t do anything bad today, not when it’s Valentine’s Day and Chenle specifically told him not to especially within class hours. It was a warning he received months ago. 

Well, Renjun was ready to fulfill any of Chenle’s requests, anyway. 

“Vandalism, if I remembered correctly? C’mon dude, I thought you were free this today?” Donghyuck brushed up the corner of his cheeks full of crumbs from the french bread he was munching. This boy is Renjun’s best friend who knew almost the inside-outs between him and Chenle, plus he was also part of the student council, so it was just normal for him and Chenle to interact frequently.

Renjun shrugged anyway, he’ll just make his stand and defend himself. He was pretty sure he didn’t do anything today. “By the way, have you seen Chenle?”

It was supposed to be their date later, right? That is what’s written in the tiny card he received.

“No,” the other shrugged like how Renjun did earlier, but no matter how much Renjun thinks, Donghyuck was suspicious. He was part of the student council too, it should be impossible for him not to see him at least once today.

Renjun, skeptical like always, continued asking, “Are you sure?”

“Out of all people, you, Huang Renjun, are suspecting me of something?” Donghyuck’s eyes twitched back to Renjun, who was now locking his eyes with him.

_It was a little dilated; his pupils were enlarged._

Renjun was sure he read some online articles about indicators of someone lying, and _enlarged pupils_ are one of those. Despite the ideas pointing out that there’s a possibility, he shrugged anyway. He shouldn’t really doubt, since Donghyuck’s part of the student council, it could be the stress overcoming him. It’s not like he’d lie to him, right? 

“Where do I go?” Renjun asked Donghyuck, sounding uninterested anymore. He had already been through this so many times in the past, yes, but he was asking for good measure. 

Donghyuck snickered, a smug smile replacing his conceiving smile minutes earlier. “School’s gymnasium, 2nd floor, after class, that was all I was told.”

💌

Renjun should’ve trusted his first instinct better.

He should’ve doubted Donghyuck the first time around, he was one hell of an expert when it comes to hiding secrets.

Now, he’s in front of hundred sticky notes decorated around a closed wooden oak door. The closed door was the entrance to the school gymnasium. It’s going to be very embarrassing if his past behavior was going to be addressed here, knowing that there will be an event soon and people will start filling up the room. It was either that or he was going to be reprimanded before the event started.

Chenle never told him what time it would start, apparently. A recent notification popped up from his phone exactly by the time he mentioned the thought in his head.

**_Incoming Message from lele <3!_ **

He swiped the message to the right side and punched his 4-numbered passcode to view the message.

**lele <3**

**[2:58 PM]** _are you there?_

 _i’m here outside_ **[2:59 PM]**

 **[2:59 PM]** _come inside!!_

And so, Renjun did what he was told to. He opened the wooden door with an evident creak; he was welcomed with his surroundings dark as night. There wasn’t any source of light anywhere inside, all came from the same door, from the same place he was from. Considering the size of the school gymnasium, it was pretty large and currently filled with darkness.

“Chenle?” Renjun called after stepping inside, with no intentions of closing the door behind him.

Renjun kept his senses checked, he had to be ready for whatever was going to happen. Thankfully, it wasn’t dangerous like he thought it was. All that happened was lights above the two of them started to open one by one.

By the end of where Renjun faced, Chenle stood casually with a mic in his hand.

“Did you miss me?”

Renjun couldn’t help but playfully snicker to whatever Chenle had going. First, it was the card and gift; the second came and it was Chenle singing to _When You Love Someone_ by an artist Renjun isn’t too familiar with, accompanied by Xiaojun strumming the guitar and Mark on the piano somewhere around the room. 

Melody splashed through the entire gymnasium, Chenle’s voice echoing and hitting all the notes perfectly.

Renjun stood frozen from where he was, captivated by how perfect the song was for Chenle and how he magically made the song his. It made him think if he was biased, but he shouldn’t be, especially because Chenle has been talented since the very start. He just didn’t have so many opportunities to showcase his talent in singing before. 

Speechless and astonished, Renjun approached Chenle after he finished his performance. He reached over Chenle’s left hand, rubbing his thumbs in circles. “I absolutely loved that, baby,” There is not much distance left between them, too. 

“I’m glad you did, I’m sorry I’ve been busy focusing after this event for everyone else, I forgot about celebrating it with you.” It sort of hurted Renjun that it had been this way especially because it is Valentine’s Day, but Chenle also had his own obligations to this school. Renjun has to understand that.

“Okay, what about something to make up for the loss we had today?” Renjun, the confident one, offered Chenle something irresistible. 

Renjun noticed Chenle’s flustered face, red all over. “Renjun… people are—”

“Baby,” the boy in front of Chenle transformed in front of Xiaojun and Mark who were somewhere from a distance, both with mixed reactions. “I only want a yes or a no. This was quite unfair for my side too.” Renjun pouted, a bit too cute, his cold persona would say in front of the mirror. 

Chenle was left flabbergasted and silent, his brain couldn’t pick up any signals to form words. He was speechless, to say the least. Renjun slipped in a smug smile, knowing he had already won, and closed the gap between the two of them. It was soft, calm, and… humble. It was probably the sweetest kiss he ever received from Renjun.

“How was that?” Renjun heard Chenle’s question while his voice faltered, probably not because of Renjun himself but due to the judgment he might receive from the onlookers he’s with right now. He was most likely afraid of what the public would say about him, knowing that he’s part of the student council.

Renjun smiled at him directly, hoping that it was enough to assure him that everything will be okay. “I think that absolutely made my day better, and if you,” he leaned closer, continuing his words under his breath, “don’t mind me doing it again?” 

Renjun waited as he watched Chenle’s eyes sparkle like galaxies were embedded within them. It took him only a few seconds and one curt answer. “Gladly.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, if u liked it pls leave a comment/kudos!!
> 
> twt: @REL0ADHAN


End file.
